United with IsraelUnited with Israelhttps://unitedwithisrael.org
The world's largest pro-Israel community.Fri, 22 Feb 2019 12:01:52 +0000en-US(63,188,253)220300(255,255,255)16Helvetica(255,255,255)14Helvetica(90,90,90)80no3012030hourly1Blastoff! Israel’s First Lunar Lander on its Way to the Moonhttps://unitedwithisrael.org/blastoff-israels-first-lunar-lander-on-its-way-to-the-moon/
https://unitedwithisrael.org/blastoff-israels-first-lunar-lander-on-its-way-to-the-moon/#respondFri, 22 Feb 2019 09:49:45 +0000https://unitedwithisrael.org/?p=287080

“There is great inspiration and daring here, and as of now great success as well. We look at the clock, another 60 days or so. We will meet on April 11,” Netanyahu enthused.

By United with Israel Staff

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Thursday night carrying Israel’s first lunar lander – “Beresheet” (“In the Beginning”) – on a mission that if successful will make the Jewish State only the fourth country to ever achieve a controlled touchdown on the moon’s surface.

Liftoff happened on schedule at 8:45 p.m Florida time, 3:45 a.m. Israel time Friday morning. Those in attendance at Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) headquarters in Yehud, Israel, cheered raucously. Some 500 employees and their families gathered to watch the launch of Israel’s historic lunar mission.

“This launch for us, the people who worked on the development and building of the spacecraft, is like a birth after a long pregnancy,” said Ehud Hayan, a space systems engineer at IAI “When the spacecraft leaves the rocket, that’s it. Once it’s in space, we can’t do any more tests or adjustments. It’s the first time it will be working alone, starting its functions. And once everything starts working, the motors are going and the pictures are streaming, you’ll feel as if there’s something alive.”

Only China, Russia, and the United States have landed a spacecraft on the moon. It will be the first such space capsule to land on the moon on a private initiative rather than on a government-funded enterprise.The 160-kilogram (350 pounds without fuel) four-legged spacecraft, about the size of a car, will also be the smallest and cheapest spacecraft to land on the moon.

A Succcessful Launch

According to official data, the Beresheet prepared to separate from the Falcon 9 rocket at 4:23 a.m, Israel time, and two minutes later, it separated from the rocket that launched it into space, successfully deploying its landing legs in the first test of its ability to function under its own power.

The spacecraft is now to travel about for seven weeks before reaching the moon on April 11.

“We had a successful launch, we were injected into a good orbit, separated well, and have good communications,” said Dr. Ofer Doron, the general manager of the IAI Space Division, after Beresheet separated from Falcon 9.

There is a small problem with one of the star trackers, which helps the spacecraft orient itself using the position of the stars, but Doron said there are other ways that the spacecraft will be able to maneuver onto the correct path.

The project is the brainchild of engineers who established an Israeli nonprofit called SpaceIL.It has proceeded with the cooperation of IAI, and has been funded mainly by Morris Kahn, a philanthropist and businessman who took the lead in completing the mission, serving as SpaceIL’s president and financing $40 million, according to the nonprofit group. Other major donors include Miriam and Sheldon Adelson and Sylvan Adams.

‘A Big Step for Israeli Technology’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who watched the launch from the IAI command center, called it “a big step for Israel, and a big step for Israeli technology,” an apparent reference to the words of U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong, who said on July 20,1969, upon becoming the first person to step foot on the moon: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

“What I see here at Israel Aerospace Industries, together with Space.il, and the entrepreneurs and leaders of the project, together with you Morris, is extraordinary spirit and enthusiasm,” Netanyahu said.

“What there is here is far beyond the money and – I think – even more than the technology. There is great inspiration and daring here, and as of now great success as well. We look at the clock, another 60 days or so. We will meet on April 11 and I hope that we will be able to celebrate the safe landing of ‘Beresheet’.

Am Yisrael chai! (The Nation of Israel lives forever!)

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During their tour of Samaria, the two congressman expressed their support for strengthening Jewish communities in these areas, rejecting any potential features of a forthcoming Trump administration peace plan that call for evacuation of Israelis from Judea and Samaria.

“[T]he best way forward for peace and prosperity for everyone, Jews and Arabs, is more industrial development here, where we can have integration and not segregation. That is the path to peace,” commented Barr, the Jerusalem Post reported.

While Harris concurred, opining that the majority of Israelis oppose forced removal of Jewish communities from Judea and Samaria, he also expressed doubt that Trump’s “deal of the century” plan would require such concessions on Israel’s part.

Previously, the U.S. president communicated that under his proposal, both sides will need to make painful compromises. Trump’s plan is set to be released following Israel’s April 9 elections.

Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan expressed gratitude to the congressmen for their visit to the area and the message it sends to those who want to delegitimize Israel and promote the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, reported the Post.

Barr and Harris also visited Oz Ve’Gaon nature reserve in Gush Etzion and met with the Women in Green movement’s Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar, who discussed Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria with the congressmen.

Barr agreed to communicate Women in Green’s message to his colleagues in Congress and constituents, and said he “echo[ed]” their “sentiment that a strong Israel and Israeli sovereignty is an interest not just of the Jewish people but of the United States as well.”

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So far, Israel’s objectives in armed conflicts with Hamas have been limited so as to avoid the need to reoccupy Gaza or to send it down the “Somalia model” path of chaos. But there might be a third option.

Hamas’s leader, Yihye Sinwar, has expressed an awareness of the futility of a new war with Israel at this time. Instead, he is focused on other goals: ending the organization’s regional isolation, strengthening its iron grip on Gaza, and avoiding an economic meltdown in the Strip, which could endanger its regime.

Hamas is relying on low intensity pressure tactics, such as weekly border rioting, to promote these goals.

It is also actively trying to set up terrorism cells throughout Judea and Samaria and plot mass casualty attacks, which the Shin Bet intelligence agency prevents to a very large degree. Hamas’s object is to weaken its arch West Bank rival, the Palestinian Authority (PA), and promote the cause of jihadist violence against Israel – and do all this without leading a trail of fire back to Gaza.

The Gaza-Israel border violence that Hamas has fomented for nearly a year represents a calculated high-risk approach. It is designed to apply pressure on Jerusalem and Cairo to ease security restrictions on Gaza without allowing the situation to deteriorate into a new war.

Hamas’s attempts to reconcile with the PA in Ramallah, which holds the key to budget allocations for Gaza, have failed, and the group is now engaging with Israel and Egypt to rescue Gaza’s economy.

A shared Israeli-Hamas interest in preventing an economic collapse of Gaza has led to regular injections of Qatari cash, a development that has politically damaged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. It has also led to some criticism of Hamas by Gazans, who ask whether the border violence and the casualties it causes are all just for the sake of Qatari money.

Throughout this time, Hamas, together with Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the second-largest armed faction in Gaza, has been embarked on an ambitious military build-up program involving the domestic production of some 20,000 surface-to-surface rockets, the digging of a network of combat tunnels crisscrossing Gaza, and intensive war training for armed Gazan battalions.

The result is an inherently unstable Gazan arena that could rapidly shift from low-level confrontation to high-intensity armed conflict, sparked by any number of localized tactical incidents.

Now is the Crucial Time

Now is therefore the crucial time for Israel to consider the end objective of any future armed conflict in Gaza, despite the lack of any will on Jerusalem’s part to enter into one.

In recent years, the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF) Southern Command, which is responsible for much of the war planning for Gaza, identified a long-term truce as the best of bad options for Israel.

This is based on the understanding that an Israeli invasion of Gaza and subsequent destruction of the Hamas regime would leave Israel in the unenviable position of being directly in charge of some two million mostly hostile Gazans. This could lead to an open-ended and draining military occupation.

It would be extremely difficult to find alternative rulers for Gaza, with the Palestinian Authority likely unwilling or unable to “ride into Gaza on Israeli tanks” and assume a governing role in the aftermath of a war. The PA would risk its legitimacy and be exposed to even harsher criticism from its Islamist rivals, who are always keen to depict it as a collaborator of Israel.

Even if the PA were willing to take over Gaza at some point, it remains unclear whether it is in fact capable of governing the Strip, as the 2007 Hamas armed coup already demonstrated.

As a result, any postwar Israeli presence in Gaza could drag on for years, and prove costly in both blood and treasure. Alternatively, Israel could demolish the Hamas regime and leave Gaza, putting it on a fast track to a “Somalia model” of anarchy and violence.

Under that scenario, no clear ruling party would emerge to fill the vacuum in post-Hamas Gaza. Multiple jihadist armed gangs that lack a central ruling structure would appear, and Israel would be unable to project its military might to any single “return address” in Gaza. This would result in a loss of Israel’s deterrent force on Gaza to keep the region calm. This scenario would be considerably worse than the current status quo.

But a third option, in between the options of leaving Gaza as it is and toppling Hamas in a future war, may exist.

Under this third scenario, the IDF would decimate Hamas’s military wing in any future conflict, but leave its political wing and police force in place. This would enable a rapid Israeli exit after a war, but avoid a Somalia-like fate for Gaza with its destructive implications for both Israelis and Gazans.

The question of whether Israel has the option of leaving Hamas’s police force and civilian government administration in place in a future war rests largely on how such entities are defined.

On the one hand, Hamas’s police force is an intrinsic support system for Gaza’s terrorist-guerilla forces. On the other, the police and domestic security units play a genuine role in keeping order in Hamastan. Such forces have been used to repress ISIS-affiliated cells that challenge Hamas’s rule.

In 2008, in response to an onslaught of Hamas rockets, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead with a surprise air attack. Among the over 100 targets that it destroyed, the Israel Air Force (IAF) bombed 24 Hamas police stations, including Gaza City Police headquarters, where a cadet graduation ceremony was underway. An estimated 40 people, including several dozen police cadets, were killed.

Clearly, in that conflict, Israel identified the Hamas police force as an intrinsic part of the Hamas regime’s terrorist assets and a legitimate enemy target.

Eleven years later, this thinking may have changed somewhat. The reason is due not to any change in the close ties between the domestic armed units of Gaza and the Hamas military wing, but rather, to the fact that Hamas’s ability to continue to rule Gaza after a future war might be in Israel’s interest. Compared to the alternative scenarios of indefinite occupation or the “Somalia scenario,” a weakened Hamas might be the best and most realistic option.

To be sure, Hamas continues to use its police force to support its terrorist-guerilla army. The organization uses the Gazan naval police, for example, as a cover for its build-up of naval commando attack cells. For this reason, Israel has repeatedly struck naval police sites in Gaza, including in May of last year during an escalation.

But if the option of launching a powerful future offensive in response to a sudden escalation is to include the possibility of a rapid Israeli exit, a substantial part of Hamas’s ability to police and administer Gaza may need to be kept intact.

A Hamas Version of the PA?

The IDF’s official strategy calls for any future high intensity war to be based on a “rapid, deadly ground offensive towards targets perceived by the enemy as being of value.” It also calls for overwhelming firepower in support of such a maneuver, largely based on airpower and guided by high-quality intelligence.

If Israel focuses these offensive capabilities on the Izz-ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, but not on the rest of the Hamas regime, it might be possible for Jerusalem to go beyond the objectives of past operations – which stopped at the goal of deterring Hamas and securing a period of calm for the South. It could significantly degrade Hamas’s military wing and still leave a Hamas version of the PA behind – a civilian government and domestic security forces. This could help Israel avoid the trap of getting “stuck in the Gazan mud.”

It remains to be seen whether the Israeli defense establishment and cabinet will adopt such an offensive plan in any future conflict.

This option would leave the door open for Hamas’s military wing to eventually rebuild itself, though this could take many years if sufficient damage is inflicted on its core command structure and armed fighting capability.

Hamas, for its part, is keen to preserve both its “government project” and its armed wing, and has pursued brinksmanship with Israel based on the understanding that Jerusalem is deterred by the idea of toppling the Islamist regime.

Placing a credible threat on just the military wing could go some way towards replenishing Israeli deterrence.

Yaakov Lappin is a Research Associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He specializes in Israel’s defense establishment, military affairs, and the Middle Eastern strategic environment.

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“Anti-Semitism in Europe is growing. Our job and your job is to eradicate it,” Yuli Edelstein told European Union ambassadors.

By Aryeh Savir, TPS

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein told European countries that their “obsessive” criticism of Israel is generating protests against the Jewish State throughout the Continent.

Edelstein met on Thursday with ambassadors of European Union (EU) countries at the home of the EU’s ambassador in Israel, Emanuele Giaufret, and discussed the protests in Europe against the Eurovision song contest, which is slated to be held in Tel Aviv in May.

Edelstein told the ambassadors that “we always say that the Eurovision is culture and should be separated from politics, but that is a lie. They are interconnected. When European parliaments are obsessed with criticizing Israeli policy, do not be surprised that the people translate the criticism into demonstrations in the street against a cultural event.”

Edelstein also referred to the vandalism of some 80 graves at a Jewish cemetery in France and said that “anti-Semitism in Europe is growing. Our job and your job is to eradicate it.”

A Jewish professor is suffering intense abuse by a radical-left group of faculty members at CUNY’s Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, which he says is enabled by the administration’s inaction. Others on staff are also targeted. This cannot continue!

By United with Israel Staff

Michael Goldstein, an administrator and an adjunct professor of communications and government relations at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn – a part of City University of New York (CUNY) – is the victim of what he describes as “a systematic and pernicious campaign in which I have been targeted and harassed because of who I am and what I believe.”

Goldstein is Jewish, politically conservative and “believes in Zionism, the civil rights movement of the Jewish people.”

The vicious attacks against the professor, led by the radical Progressive Faculty Caucus (PFC), an unsanctioned group of faculty members, went as far as to threaten his family. In an incident last May, they papered the campus with 1,000 flyers, sharing posts from his private Facebook page, including a photo of his 13-year-old daughter. They likely got hold of the material from students who are also Facebook “friends,” he surmises.

“They’ve stripped me of my humanity this year. They destroyed me. I’m half the man that I was. I have sleepless nights. Every student I look at, I think they’re going to attack me. I don’t even leave my office. They’ve isolated me. I have to walk around campus with a public safety officer. I’ve gained 50 pounds. I used to wear a suit and tie every day, but now I just don’t have what it takes anymore,” he said in an interview with World Israel News.

“They’ve legitimized anti-Semitism,” he explained. “If I was black, gay, Muslim, Latino or disabled, the university would have come to my rescue. It’s they who have attacked me, but it’s the university that enables them and emboldens them by their inaction.”

PFC’s “activities are not only directed towards me,” Goldstein notes. “Over the past year alone, at least five complaints by Jewish staff members have been filed against them internally with CUNY.”

We must now allow this to continue. Contact the administration today!

Email the following administrators to demand that they take immediate action: (copy/paste the email addresses below into your email sending program)

President Claudia Schrader at Kingsborough Community College: Claudia.Schrader@kbcc.cuny.edu

The American celebrity will visit the Holy Land to promote an eyewear line she designed for Israeli brand Carolina Lemke.

By United with Israel Staff

Supermodel Kim Kardashian announced that she will arrive in Israel next month for a three-day visit to launch a new line of glasses she created for Caroline Lemke.

Kardashian, who is the wife of music superstar Kanye West, inked a deal to help promote the Israeli eyewear brand in the U.S., a deal that will net her 10% of the shares of sales by Caroline Lemke’s parent company, Castro, in that market, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Caroline Lemke is partially owned by Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli.

Kardashian visited the Holy Land in 2015 with West and their baby daughter, who was baptized into the Armenian Church in a ceremony held in Jerusalem’s Old City. The family remained in Israel for a two-day visit, before continuing on to Jordan.

While in Israel, Kardashian and West dined with then Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and were treated to a private tour of the holy city.

Kardashian rose to fame following her modeling career via a hit reality show, while West has remained a staple of the pop and hip hop charts for the better part of two decades.

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The Israeli lawmaker condemned the freshman U.S. congresswoman based on tweets resulting in widespread accusations of anti-Semitism.

Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar hit the national political radar after 2012 tweets in which she accused “evil” Israel of “hypnotizing the world” and perpetrating an “apartheid” regime.

While Omar was roundly criticized for anti-Semitism after those tweets came to light, she refused to apologize for close to seven years. Omar also deceived voters about her anti-Israel positions before elections last fall, telling 1,000 attendees at a synagogue-hosted campaign event that she deems BDS “unhelpful” but admitting to the Muslimgirl.com website a week after her election victory that she has always supported boycotts of Israel.

After Omar’s recent statements about lobbyists paying off lawmakers to support Israel, Knesset member Naftali Bennett warned a visiting delegation from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations that Omar is an “anti-Semite, loud and clear.”

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Kansas State Treasurer Jake LaTurner has introduced a bill that would allow Kansas to invest in Israel Bonds.

By: JNS.org

“This legislation is an important step in diversifying our portfolio,” said Kansas State Treasurer Jake LaTurner of a bill clearing the way for his state to invest in Israel Bonds.

“Twenty-eight other states across the country have similar authority and have seen bipartisan support when their legislature weighs in. It is also an opportunity to strengthen a relationship with a long-time trade partner with Kansas that is very well connected in the world of business, agriculture, technology and health care,” he added.

If enacted, Kansas would join states such as Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas as states investing in Israel Bonds, which is the U.S. sponsor of debt securities issued by Israel’s government.

Legislation must be enacted in order to purchase Israel Bonds.

This bill would permit the state’s Pooled Money Investment Board to invest up to 2 percent of the state’s inactive funds in bonds sold by the State of Israel. Since Israel began selling bonds more than five decades ago, it has never defaulted. In the past half-decade, American sales of Israel Bonds have exceeded $1 billion.

The Israel education group StandWithUs applauded the move, saying there’s no better place to invest than in the Jewish homeland.

“Kansas will hopefully join 28 states who have similar bipartisan support for investing in Israel. It’s a very safe option,” said SWU CEO Roz Rothstein. “Since Israel began selling bonds, they have never missed a principal or income payment to their creditors.”

This is the inside story of the Israeli search-and-rescue team that rushed to Brazil after a dam collapsed last month, causing a massive mudslide that buried hundreds of people alive.

An Israeli emergency aid delegation was ready to show Brazilians who their true friends in the world are after a devastating flood took the lives of over 150 people in the South American nation.

Comprised of 130 IDF soldiers, doctors, and an Israeli firefighters’ unit, the team worked ceaselessly to search for the living, bring dignity to the dead, and comfort Brazilians experiencing the horrific disaster.

This is the amazing story of how a group of Israelis rushed halfway across the world to lend a hand to those in need.

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Netanyahu announced that the Arab world’s view of the Middle East has changed and its leaders concur with Israel that fighting Iranian aggression is the key to peace in the region.

By: TPS

Addressing the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations’ Leadership Mission to Israel on Monday evening in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared his experiences at the Warsaw Conference last week, during which some 60 heads of state, including several from Middle Eastern countries, convened to discuss combating Iran.

“They spoke about seeking solutions to problems in the Middle East. They said, yes, we want to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem, but it cannot be solved unless we roll back Iran’s aggression. That’s a change,” Netanyahu stated.

“With the Arab countries, as with many Muslim countries, the question is how to fight militant Islam. And recently in Warsaw, you saw something spectacular. I did. There were 60 foreign ministers, representatives of 60 countries in a hall about the size of this hall, with the representatives from half a dozen Arab countries who got on the stage and spoke about Iran,” the Israeli premier shared. “They said Iran is the greatest danger we face.”

One head of state was asked about Israel’s military action against Iran’s entrenchment in Syria and the answer was, “Every country has a right to defend itself,” Netanyahu added, in an apparent reference to Israel’s right to self-defense.

Iran’s military build-up in Syria remains a red line for Israel. Israel’s Air Force has carried out hundreds of attacks to thwart the Iranian entrenchment in the war-torn country in the last two years alone.

Iran uses its positions in Syria to transfer weapons and infrastructure to its terror proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, while attempting to establish another military front against Israel from the Syrian Golan Heights.

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A New York preacher claimed the Quran forbids Muslims from cooperating with “allies'”from the Jewish or Christian faiths.

During a recent sermon, New York Imam Abul Baraa Muhammad Abdullah Amreeki warned that collaborating with Jews and Christians is strictly forbidden.

He claimed that there is rampant spying in American mosques, perpetrated by Muslims who covertly monitor other Muslims for shadowy government agents dangling incentives such as immigration status or financial and legal assistance.

Amreeki served time in the Rikers Island prison, where he converted to Islam.

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Dozens of Palestinians have been trying to force their way into an area of the Temple Mount that was closed off following large-scale destruction of Jewish antiquities under the direction of the Islamic Waqf.

Palestinian factions appear to be looking for confrontation on the Temple Mount again, barging into an area that was restricted due to illegal activities that permanently threatened Jewish artifacts on the Temple Mount.

The area, called the Golden Gate, has been closed off by court order since 2003 due to “renovations” that appeared designed to erase evidence of the Jewish people’s connection to the site, which is where two Holy Temples stood and remains the holiest place in the Jewish religion.

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A new report demonstrates that not a single chemical attack has occurred in Syria since the U.S. launched a devastating strike on key Syrian military sites last year.

By: Rafael Medoff

A new study has documented the Syrian government’s role in more than 300 chemical weapons attacks against its own citizens. Significantly, the new report found no evidence of any such gassing attacks in the ten months since last year’s U.S. missile strike on Syrian chemical warfare sites.

It’s time for some soul-searching by those who denounced that U.S. military action—including one of the current candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination and officials of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. It’s time to acknowledge that American bombs can stop genocide.

The landmark Syria report, released February 17 by the Berlin-based Global Public Policy Institute, found there were at least 336 chemical weapons attacks in Syria between 2012 and 2018, and 98% of them were perpetrated by the Assad regime. (Full text of the report: https://www.gppi.net/2019/02/17/the-logic-of-chemical-weapons-use-in-syria)

According to the report’s detailed timeline of the Syrian chemical atrocities, there have been no such attacks since April 7, 2018. That date is significant—it was one week before the United States carried out major missile strikes on multiple Syrian chemical weapons facilities.

The strikes were praised by a wide range of foreign leaders and by prominent voices across the American political spectrum. But there were some notable, and disturbing, exceptions.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) said that since “Syria has not declared war against the U.S.,” missile strikes on the chemical sites were “illegal” and unconstitutional. Gabbard earlier said she was “skeptical” as to whether the Assad regime really was gassing civilians. She is now a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Rebecca Erbelding, a staff historian at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, tweeted in response to the missile strikes: “There are viable ways that the US can aid those being persecuted under an evil regime. Bombing isn’t one of them.”

A few months earlier, the museum had stirred controversy by issuing a report arguing it would have been “very difficult” for the US “to take effective action to prevent atrocities in Syria.” That sounded like a justification of President Barack Obama’s embarrassing failure to act on his famous “red line” ultimatum. After an outcry, the museum backed down and deleted the report’s most objectionable language.

Amnesty International responded to the U.S. strike on the chemical weapons targets with a press release characterizing Assad’s atrocities as “alleged violations of the Syrian government.” Meanwhile, Code Pink and other antiwar groups staged “Hands off Syria” rallies around the country.

Seventy-five years ago this spring, the Roosevelt administration learned the full details of the mass gassing of Jews in the Auschwitz death camp. Thanks to two escapees from the camp, US officials even received detailed maps pinpointing the location of the gas chambers and crematoria.

Jewish groups in the United States and elsewhere pleaded with US officials to order air strikes on the mass-murder machinery, or on the railway lines and bridges over which hundreds of thousands of Jews were being deported to Auschwitz.

Since US planes were already bombing German oil fields within five miles of the Auschwitz gas chambers as well as railway lines and bridges throughout that region of Europe, it would not have diverted from the war effort to drop a few bombs on the transportation lines to Auschwitz or the mass-murder machinery. But the Roosevelt administration refused.

Those who have not learned from the moral failures of the Holocaust era should at least pay attention to more recent evidence of how U.S. military force can be used to interrupt genocide or other atrocities.

Recall that President Bill Clinton used air strikes to put an end to atrocities in the Balkans. President Obama used military force to preempt the plan by Libyan dictator Muammar Qadaffi to carry out what the president called “a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.” Obama also took military action to end the ISIS siege of thousands of Yazidi civilians in Iraq.

The new report on Syria urges the US to further damage Assad’s chemical weapons potential by “directly targeting the military formations that would be responsible for any future attacks.” It argues that “the Syrian helicopter fleet, which has played a critical role in the delivery of conventional and chemical barrel bombs, should be a primary target.”

If President Roosevelt had heeded the pleas that were made in 1944 to use force against the machinery of genocide, many lives could have been saved. Let’s hope the current president will learn from FDR’s mistake.

Dr. Rafael Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, and the author of The Jews Should Keep Quiet: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and the Holocaust, forthcoming from The Jewish Publication Society in 2019.

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“We are working on taking down borders, and both Israelis and Palestinians need to take part in this,” said Palestinian businessman and community leader Ashraf Jabari.

An economic initiative aimed at advancing economic opportunities in Judea and Samaria was launched in Jerusalem on Wednesday with the active participation and support of both Israeli and Palestinian business leaders.

The mission of the project, known as the “Judea Samaria Regional Development Financing Initiative,” (RDFI) is to integrate economic planning as well as to advance joint entrepreneurship between Israelis and Palestinians who live in the region.

Leading the initiative is the Judea-Samaria Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JSC), an organization founded on such a partnership by an Israeli, Avi Zimmerman, and a Palestinian, Ashraf Jabari.

The forum continues Thursday at the King David hotel in Jerusalem with the participation of dignitaries such as US Ambassador David Friedman, former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren, and US Senator James Lankford.

In this video, Moshe Lev-Ran, head of exports at Barkan’s TwitoPlast, which makes air conditioner parts and whose plant is managed by a Palestinian, describes the amazing coexistence.

CELEBRATE ISRAEL'S NEW YEAR FOR TREES. Make the Land of Israel More Beautiful by Planting Fruit Trees Today!

Despite concerns of Jewish students, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is going ahead with a lecture by Linda Sarsour at a medical conference.

By Peter Reitzes, The Tower

In 2018, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) gained national attention when it was revealed that a required textbook for almost 19,000 students was found to blame Jews for not tapping into their inner strength to resist during the Holocaust.

Now, UNC-CH is in the news again for its insensitivity toward Jewish students. As I recently reported in The Tower, UNC-CH is hosting their Minority Health Conference on February 22, featuring keynote speaker Linda Sarsour. Sarsour is known for her hostility toward Israel, having said “Nothing is creepier than Zionism” and advising Muslims not to “humanize” Israelis.

One UNC graduate captured the public outrage by writing on Facebook, “I’m an alum of UNC. No more donations from me if you allow this Jew hater to speak.”

A university spokesperson told me that Sarsour is being paid $2,500 and will be reimbursed travel and expenses for her keynote address. University officials were quick to distance themselves from Sarsour’s invitation to speak with the excuse that it is a student- run conference; yet, Sarsour’s keynote is co-sponsored by both the UNC Gillings School of Public Health and the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies. While University officials may be correct that a state free speech law prevents them from uninviting Sarsour, there is no state law requiring UNC departments to co-sponsor Sarsour’s speech. And there is no state law preventing UNC departments from revoking their sponsorships of Linda Sarsour’s speech.

UNC Publicly Embracing Sarsour

Through prestigious department sponsorships, UNC is publicly embracing Sarsour’s keynote appearance. In fact, UNC’s Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies became a co-sponsor of Sarsour’s speech only about a week ago. The sponsorship came well after Hillel, many local residents and many UNC alumni expressed strong concerns to the university.

The Zionist Organization of America wrote to Dean Barabara Rimer of the Gillings school, “If you and the School truly lack the authority to rescind the invitation to Linda Sarsour to be the keynote speaker, then…Exercise your own First Amendment rights and issue a public statement condemning Linda Sarsour’s anti-Semitic bigotry and the decision to make her the keynote speaker at the conference.”

Sarsour’s abstract for her upcoming keynote indicates that her speech will focus on “intersectionality.” Sarsour uses intersectionality as a bludgeon to vilify Israel and Zionists. For example, Sarsour has used her position as a Woman’s March leader to promote boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

Sarsour has alienated many Jewish women by declaring that feminists cannot be Zionists. When questioned about associations with the notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, Women’s March leaders hid behind the excuse of intersectional feminism. Sarsour misuses intersectionality to rationalize anti-Semitism.

A recent letter sent to the Dean of the Gillings School of Public Health in support of Sarsour, signed by 33 people who identify as members of the UNC community, refers to Sarsour as “brilliant” and stated that “Antisemitism is rooted in white supremacy.” In other words, the signatories put forth the troubling position that Sarsour isn’t anti-Semitic because she advocates for “marginalized people” and isn’t a white supremacist. This is as absurd as suggesting that a man can’t be a rapist because he is a feminist.

Sarsour’s Controversial Supporters

Signatories to the letter include Professor Pam Silberman, Professor Emeritus Trude Bennett, and Associate Professor Daniel Westreich – all of the Gillings School – and Elyse Crystall, UNC Associate Professor of Literature.

Elyse Crystall is no stranger to controversy. In 2004, the Carolina Alumni Review reported that UNC was monitoring Crystall after she “publicly criticized a student” in an email and The Office for Civil Rights found that Crystall’s e-mail violated Titles VI and IX of the Civil Rights Act.” In 2018, Crystall opposed a Jewish candidate for the Durham City Council because the candidate – a leader of the Hispanic community and an immigrant from Colombia – attends a local Jewish synagogue. As reported in the Tower, the candidate described Crystall’s email as “anti-Semitic.”

Also in 2018, Crystall sent a letter to the Durham Human Relations Commission, alleging that Israel is “Experimenting on the captive population under military occupation” and has “tested” weapons on Palestinians. I contacted Crystall for this column and asked about what some view as her thinly veiled comparison of Israelis to Nazis. Crystall did not respond.

Crystall is the UNC-CH faculty advisor to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). The Anti-Defamation League reports that SJP chapters “regularly demonize Jewish students who identify as Zionists.” At least six of the signatories to the letter in support of Sarsour are members of the anti-Zionist organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). It comes as no surprise that those who object to Israel’s existence also embrace Linda Sarsour. University officials and the conference co-chairs would not directly respond to my question asking if JVP or SJP were involved in inviting Linda Sarsour to speak at UNC.

‘Undeniably Ant-Semitic’

UNC-CH freshman and Board Member of Chabad at UNC, Sam Zah told me that, “Anti-Semitism is a problem on both sides of the political spectrum. Yet, both sides attempt to spin it so as to cast it off as merely the problem of the other. This is exactly what Sarsour’s supporters are doing when they write ‘Anti-Semitism is rooted in white supremacy.’ There is no doubt that white supremacists spew anti-Semitism, but this is just another way of distracting from criticism of their own anti-Semitism. Sarsour’s refusal to condemn Farrakhan, a man who claims he isn’t anti-Semitic – just ‘anti-Termite’ – isn’t rooted in white supremacy, but it is undeniably anti-Semitic.”

A UNC-CH graduate student wrote to the university, saying, “I call into question the motivation for her [Sarsour’s] selection, especially in light of the fact that her professional and educational background really have nothing to do with public health or healthcare.”

A university spokesperson said, “The conference is led by a planning committee of 72 student volunteers…This committee, led by the student co-chairs, selected the keynote speakers.” However, a UNC-CH student told me that a university spokesperson conceded that one or more UNC faculty or administration members were responsible for vetting Linda Sarsour. In addition, as reported in The Tower, one of the student co-chairs and two other planning committee members recently signed an anti-Israel petition that was prepared for and given to the Durham City Council.

Numerous community members have contacted me to share that a peaceful protest during Sarsour’s speech is planned. Marcia Harris, a former UNC administrator with over 30 years of experience on campus, wrote, “Many of us are disturbed by the invitation extended to Linda Sarsour to speak at a conference hosted by UNC. She is on record as advocating BDS and closely associating with known anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan. She has made statements belittling women who are standing up against feminine genital mutilation. Please join us in protesting against [Sarsour’s] appearance at UNC.”

To begin the healing with the Jewish community, UNC should consider sponsoring a conference that looks at anti-Semitism from wherever it arises – including left-wing and right-wing extremist viewpoints. Clearly, there is a need for such education at UNC. In addition, the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health should consider offering education on the incredible public health practices and initiatives in Israel, such as Israel’s impressive scientific achievements in facing the global water crisis.

UNC should focus on programs that advocate for health, while bringing people together instead of dividing.

CELEBRATE ISRAEL'S NEW YEAR FOR TREES. Make the Land of Israel More Beautiful by Planting Fruit Trees Today!

Mind the Tech for chance to win $1 million

The semi-final of Trifecta, a $1 million startup competition, will be held during Calcalist’s 3rd annual Mind the Tech Conference, in New York on April 10-12. The final will be in Israel in June where the $1 million investment will be awarded by Israel-based firm Pitango Venture Capital.https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3755635,00.html

With or without the funds to keep Palestinian Authority civil society afloat, the terrorists keep living the good life.

By Ruthie Blum, JNS

The Israeli security cabinet decided on Sunday to put into effect a law passed in July to deduct half a billion shekels (approximately $138.2 million) from the annual tax revenues it transfers to the Palestinian Authority each year. The purpose of the legislation—like its precursor, the Taylor Force Act, which was approved by the U.S. Congress in May—is to coerce the P.A. to cease rewarding terrorists with hefty “pay-for-slay” stipends.

Initially, Israeli security officials opposed cutting the funds on the grounds that doing so could endanger security cooperation between Jerusalem and Ramallah, and lead to an escalation of terrorist attacks. But after 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher was raped and murdered earlier this month by a Palestinian wannabe “martyr for Allah,” public pressure on the government to crack down on the PA caused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to say that he would begin implementing the law to withhold funds as soon as he received the green light from the security cabinet. Which he finally did.

The PA was quick to issue an incensed response.

“The Palestinian Authority views the approval of the decision to deduct funds as a robbery of the Palestinian people’s money and as a unilateral violation of the agreements signed between the two sides, such as the Paris agreement,” PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s spokesman Abu Rudaina said in a statement. “This decision will have dangerous consequences on all levels.”

Rudaina was referring to the 1994 Protocol on Economic Relations, part of the Oslo Accords, a peace treaty that the Palestinians have used since then as an excuse to wage war.

Inverting reality by accusing Israel of violating agreements is par for the Palestinian course, so the PA’s current outrage at being told to stop remunerating Jew-killers was to be expected. It is ironic, however, that Abbas himself not only acknowledges paying terrorists for their service, but boasts about it.

In fact, when Israel passed the bill in July to withhold PA funds, Abbas announced: “Even if we have only a penny left, we will give it to the martyrs, the prisoners and their families. We view the prisoners and the martyrs as planets and stars in the skies of the Palestinian struggle, and they have priority in everything.”

According to a report on Monday by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which first revealed the exorbitant sums that the PA spends annually on terrorist prisoners, released prisoners and families of dead terrorists, Abbas reiterated this message in October, declaring: “I say this to everyone—the salaries of our Martyrs, prisoners, and wounded are a red line. They [Israel] try by all means, and exert pressure by all means, and they continue to exert: ‘It cannot be that you will pay.’ And they’ll even deduct our money that’s in their hands. They’ll deduct from it the amount that we pay to the Martyrs. We have said that this is a red line and we will not allow [it]. From 1965 until now, this matter is sacred to us. The Martyrs and their families are sacred, [and so are] the wounded and the prisoners. We must pay all of them. If one penny remains in our hands it is for them and not for the living.”

As if this weren’t proof enough that the PA leader and his henchmen consider death of both Israelis and the terrorists who murder them more valuable than the lives of his people, Abbas conveyed an official message last week, through his civil affairs minister, that if Israel “deducts even one penny” from the tax revenues, he will refuse to receive any money at all.

Abbas’s Calculated Move

Though this might sound like a peculiar, even childish, form of cutting off his nose to spite his face, it is actually a calculated move with two aims.

The first is to show the Palestinians that he is just as tough as his rival terrorist counterparts in Hamas when it comes to annihilating the Jewish state. The second is to arouse international condemnation of Israel for the financial plight of the Palestinian populace. Sadly, he is likely to have greater success with the latter than the former.

Even more distressing is the fact that, with or without the funds to keep PA civil society afloat, the terrorists will continue to be in clover. It is a no-win situation both for Israel and any Palestinian who would prefer to earn a living than die in order to do so.

Life-Saving ATVs Stop Terrorists Before they Attack Innocent Israelis

Palestinian attackers have terrorized Israelis with stabbings, shootings, bombings and car-rammings throughout Israel, with no end in sight.

Specialized, state-of-the-art, compact, all-terrain ATVs that maneuver in tight spaces are Israel’s “secret weapon,” designed to pursue and capture terrorists BEFORE they attack. Life-saving ATVs are desperately needed to protect communities throughout Israel. Please donate generously!

Mordechai Yosef was raised as a Palestinian and taught to despise Jews, but all of that changed when he took a closer look at his own family tree.

A young Muslim man born into a Palestrinian refugee family was raised to hate Jews.

Upon discovering that he himself is a Jew, he did more research on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and became an activist against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Now going by the Hebrew name of Mordechai Yosef, having embraced Judaism, he blasts the corruption in the Palestinian Authority, saying that his family and others like them never received any of the money supposedly intended for refugees.

He also slams the PA for using hundreds of millions of dollars to pay terrorists who murder Jews.

Watch and hear his fascinating personal story and the truth about UNRWA and the PA!

A #Muslim#Palestinian was raised to hate #Jews. At age 26 he finds out that he himself is Jewish. In his interview he reveals what he was taught about Jews & sheds some light on the connection between @UNRWA's funding to financing terrorism & the Palestinian leadership's wealth. pic.twitter.com/ttIkvJMn0T

Israel set a new all-time record by generating unprecedented amounts of electricity from renewable energy sources.

By: TPS

Israel’s Electric Company (IEC) reported that a new renewable energy record was set last Wednesday when the peak production stood at 1295 megawatts, accounting for 16.4 percent of the total production of energy in the country.

In addition, the peak production in photovoltaic (PV) energy produced by converting light into electricity stood at 1034 megawatts, constituting about 80 percent of the total production of renewable energy.

The IEC stated that the capacity of renewable energy currently stands at about 7 percent of the electricity provided to the country.

The Israeli government has been supporting solar energy research since the establishment of the state, with the intention of harnessing science to help a country with few natural resources.

It has also approved laws and several government decisions aimed at encouraging the production of energy via renewable sources.

Israel has developed some of the world’s most advanced solar energy equipment and enjoys sunshine almost year-round.

It hopes to generate 10 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020 and is developing several projects to ensure this, including a 240 meter (787-foot) tall solar tower in the south which can generate up to 121 megawatts of power, providing about one percent of Israel’s electricity consumption.

Israel was crowned the leading force in the development of clean technologies in 2014, beating out 40 other countries.

Its renewable energy innovation has received global recognition for its clean water technologies and other inventions that facilitate a more energy-efficient economy.

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“Sweetheart, don’t do that,” Farrakhan stated, urging Omar not to apologize for her anti-Semitic comments and to “shake up that corrupt House.” He was roundly applauded.

In an address to his movement’s Saviours’ Day conference in Chicago on Sunday, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan encouraged Muslim Congresswoman Ilhan Omar to stand by her anti-Semitic comments and not to apologize.

Omar, an advocate for the BDS, has made several racist remarks over the years, mixing anti-Israel propaganda with anti-Semitic tropes. Last week, she explicitly stated that AIPAC, the largest pro-Israel lobby group in Washington, was paying off American politicians to support the Jewish State.

Farrakhan has a long history of anti-Semitism and incitement against Jews. Most recently, he referred to Jews as “termites.”

Omar is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at a fundraiser in Los Angeles in March for the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), according to a report in the Daily Caller.

Earlier this month, she called to completely defund the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, tweeting: “#Not1Dollar for DHS.”

“You have nothing to apologize for. Israel and AIPAC pays off senators and congressmen to do their bidding. So you’re not lying. So stop laying down. You were sent there to Shake up that corrupt House,” Farrakan declared.

Indeed, Omar could be trying to “shake up” the House,” as she recently urged her followers to defund the Department of Homeland Security, tweeting, “#Not1Dollar for DHS.”

CELEBRATE ISRAEL'S NEW YEAR FOR TREES. Make the Land of Israel More Beautiful by Planting Fruit Trees Today!

Unknown flight planners occupy one of the most sensitive and important – yet least heralded – positions in the IDF. There’s no room for error.

Air force fighter pilots are at the forefront of Israel’s military activity in the north and south, often flying delicate missions that can go wrong in an instant. The relatively unknown flight assistants are working from the ground to make sure the pilots make it home.

Flight planners – female soldiers, 19 or 20 years of age – occupy one of the most sensitive and important positions in the IDF but the least heralded. Israel Air Force pilots couldn’t leave the ground without them.

There’s no room for error – especially not in the current situation, as air operations soar over Syria and the Gaza Strip.

This is the first time an inside look has been permitted for this unit. Watch and learn about the vital work that these young women do!

Life-Saving ATVs Stop Terrorists Before they Attack Innocent Israelis

Palestinian attackers have terrorized Israelis with stabbings, shootings, bombings and car-rammings throughout Israel, with no end in sight.

Specialized, state-of-the-art, compact, all-terrain ATVs that maneuver in tight spaces are Israel’s “secret weapon,” designed to pursue and capture terrorists BEFORE they attack. Life-saving ATVs are desperately needed to protect communities throughout Israel. Please donate generously!

Beginning in February 2019, late-model cars involved in crashes in Israel have started to call for ambulances autonomously, reporting the exact location as well as the specifics of any injuries.

The initiative is a joint venture between Haifa-based startup MDGo and Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s national emergency response service.

The system uses sensors already installed in most new models for a variety of purposes, including locating stolen cars. MDGo’s system determines the nature of an accident (front, rear, or side impact); whether the car rolled; the speed and severity of the impact; and the nature and extent of driver and passenger injuries expected, using a sophisticated algorithm.

In tests conducted with about 250,000 vehicles in Israel since June 2018, the MDGo system was 100 percent accurate in reporting car accidents and 92% accurate in projecting the injuries sustained compared to field assessments made by MDA emergency medical technicians arriving on the scene.

The new autonomous system has not only dramatically reduced response times, but also enabled MDA to respond with the appropriate equipment and protocol, according to Ido Rosenblat, MDA chief information officer.

“This is particularly crucial in serious accidents, where a driver is rendered unconscious and is otherwise unable to seek medical assistance,” Rosenblat said.

“With the information the system now provides us, we can make immediate assessments about what kind of response we need to activate — whether it’s dispatching a Basic Life Support ambulance for broken bones and non-lethal injuries, a Mobile Intensive Care Unit ambulance for potentially life-threatening injuries, or even one of our Medevac helicopters.”

In the chaotic aftermath of an accident, it takes an average of five minutes during the day and seven minutes at night before someone calls for an ambulance. With the MDGo system, MDA is alerted in seconds.

By getting to the scene earlier, MDGo estimates non-pedestrian auto fatalities can be reduced by 44% using this technology.

“MDGo does more than bring first responders to the scene more quickly,” said Dr. Itay Bengad, MDGo’s cofounder and CEO, and also a physician in Tel Aviv. “Based on the vehicular impact, it alerts arriving EMTs and the hospital to injuries the patient may have sustained, but which may not be immediately apparent. This enables earlier interventions and prevents potentially fatal complications that can result from leaving undetected injuries unaddressed for hours — or even days.”

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The United Kingdom and Israel finalized a post-Brexit free trade agreement on Monday.

British Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox flew to Israel for the signing of the deal, which was first announced last month.

After the signing, Fox spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by telephone.

Netanyahu “congratulated Secretary Fox on the signing of the trade agreement and said that Israel views it with great importance,” a Prime Minister’s Office statement said. “The prime minister added that Great Britain is an important friend of Israel and noted that the agreement reflects that. He said that it was good for both parties.”

“Prime Minister Netanyahu emphasized the importance of increasing pressure on Iran and cooperating with the sanctions imposed by the US with the goal of bringing about a change in Iran’s aggression,” the statement added.

UK-Israel trade totaled more than $10 billion in value last year.

The UK is set to withdraw from the EU on March 29. The British political scene is currently in turmoil following Prime Minister Theresa May’s failed effort to get parliamentary approval for a negotiated deal with the EU on the terms of the departure.

CELEBRATE ISRAEL'S NEW YEAR FOR TREES. Make the Land of Israel More Beautiful by Planting Fruit Trees Today!

Abbas is set to refuse $2.2 billion in tax transfers from Israel in 2019 in response to Israel’s deduction of $139.5 million that the Palestinian Authority planned to used to reward terrorists.

By: United with Israel Staff with files from PMW

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas announced that his regime will refuse all tax revenues Israel transfers to the PA if Israel deducts the amount the PA uses to reward terrorists.

The announcement arrived after the Israeli Cabinet announced Sunday that Israel will deduct $139,638,000 this year from tax funds that would otherwise be transferred to the PA.

According to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), “This sum does not include the PA’s financial rewards to families of dead terrorists, the so-called ‘martyrs,’ or to wounded terrorists. The deduction will be made in 12 monthly portions of approx. $11,636,500 million/month – almost 42 million shekels/month.”

Earlier this month, Abbas declared that if Israel follows through with the announced deductions, he will refuse to accept the remainder of the transfers, which are funds the Palestinian population desperately needs to keep their economy viable, PMW reported based on statements in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, the official PA daily.

Terrorism More Important than Prosperity

In reference to this development, PMW concluded, “[This move] conclusively confirm[s] that Abbas and the PA prioritize rewarding terrorists and murderers rather than the best interests of the entire Palestinian population. Instead of accepting that Israel refuses to transfer $11.6 million/month for terror rewards, Abbas prefers to punish the entire Palestinian population by refusing $174.5 million of tax money, which would benefit all Palestinians.”

With taxes collected by Israel accounting for approximately 50 percent of the PA’s operational budget, refusing the remainder of this sum after terrorist salaries are deducted demonstrates that Abbas is content depriving his people of basic needs.

According to PMW, “Abbas intends to try and use the tactic of impoverishing the Palestinian population to put pressure on Israel to transfer to him the money he uses for terror. Secondly, he may hope that the international community will pressure Israel to ignore its own laws. Thirdly, he may expect the international community to again subsidize the PA. Alongside the financial leverage Abbas hopes to gain, it is also possible that he is going to use the deduction, and the ensuing self-made crisis, to spark yet another wave of terror.”

In response to the law, Abbas declared on official PA TV in October, “From 1965 until now, this matter is sacred to us. The martyrs and their families are sacred, [and so are] the wounded and the prisoners. We must pay all of them. If one penny remains in our hands it is for them and not for the living.”

CELEBRATE ISRAEL'S NEW YEAR FOR TREES. Make the Land of Israel More Beautiful by Planting Fruit Trees Today!

Millennia before Palestinians appeared on the world stage following the Six-Day War, the “West Bank” was already known as Judea and Samaria. “Palestine” dates from the League of Nations Mandate (1923) that granted England governing power over the land, including Trans-Jordan, that was previously controlled by the defeated Ottoman Empire.

The Mandate recognized “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine.” “Palestinians” were not mentioned; Arabs in the Land of Israel lacked national consciousness as a people. Two decades after the birth of Israel, following the Six-Day War, they borrowed so extensively from Jewish and Zionist sources as to virtually constitute historical plagiarism.

“Palestine” had emerged as an abbreviation of “Syria-Palestine,” imposed by Roman conquerors in the 2nd century CE to obliterate the Jews’ connection to their biblical homeland. Modern conceptions of Palestine did not appear until the 19th century, when British artists and writers began to explore the ”Holy Land.” Jews, wrote Rev. Alexander Keith, are “a people without a country” while “their own land . . . [is] a country without a people.” Several years later Lord Ashley Cooper described “a country without a nation” needing “a nation without a country.” That nation, he asserted, was “the ancient and rightful lords of the soil, the Jews!”

During the early years of the British Mandate, Arabs in Palestine still had little awareness of a distinctive national identity. Testifying before the Peel Commission in 1937, Syrian leader Auni Bey Abdul-Nadi asserted: “There is no such country as Palestine. … ‘Palestine’ is alien to us. It is the Zionists who introduced it.”

Even Columbia history professor Rashid Khalidi, an expert on Palestinian identity, would acknowledge that before World War I “Palestine” did not exist in Arab consciousness. Zionist land development served as a magnet for Arabs from Middle Eastern countries who came to Palestine in search of a better life and eventually became “Palestinians.”

Shortly before the birth of the State of Israel, Arab historian Philip Hitti conceded: “There is no such thing as Palestine in history.” Even the UN General Assembly Resolution in 1947 referred to the area west of the Jordan River as Judea and Samaria. A distinctive Palestinian identity did not emerge until the humiliating Arab defeat in the Six-Day War.

Why was it, wondered Walid Shoebat from Bethlehem, that “on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian. … We considered ourselves Jordanian until the Jews returned to Jerusalem.”

Belated Palestinian Identity – Derivation from Jewish Sources

Most striking about the belated Palestinian identity is its derivation from Jewish sources. Like other Middle Eastern Muslims, Palestinians claim Ishmael, Abraham’s son by his servant Hagar, as their ancestral link to “their” patriarch Abraham. The Canaanites have been adopted as their own victimized ancestral people. Ironically, their insistent claim of a “right to return” for Palestinian refugees (and their descendants) emulates the Israeli Law of Return. Palestinian teenagers have preposterously compared themselves to Anne Frank, suffering from an Israeli “Holocaust.”

Allegations endlessly repeated by the United Nations, Palestinians, and, to be sure, The New York Times, that Israel has no legitimate claim to the territory now commonly known as the “West Bank” (of Jordan) are fallacious, if not mendacious. They lack any familiarity with the history of Jews in the Land of Israel — and the absence of any identifiable “Palestinian” presence or identity until quite recently. But old falsehoods never die; they may not even fade away.

Jerold S. Auerbach is the author of “Print to Fit: The New York Times, Zionism and Israel,” 1896-2016, to be published this month by Academic Studies Press.

CELEBRATE ISRAEL'S NEW YEAR FOR TREES. Make the Land of Israel More Beautiful by Planting Fruit Trees Today!

Israeli doctors at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa recently conducted a successful procedure through which they restored a woman’s lost eyesight using a placenta.

By: TPS

A young woman in her 20s recently came to Rambam Hospital after suffering significant chemical burns on the surface of her eye. The serious injury threatened her eyelids, the eyes, and her eyesight, putting her at risk for blindness.

Dr. Shmuel Graffi, Chairperson of the Israeli Cornea Society and a senior doctor in Rambam’s Department of Ophthalmology, treated the young woman and said that the chemicals were very dangerous and required a “creative solution.”

The chemicals were trapped between the woman’s contact lens and her cornea and began to digest the corneal tissue while penetrating deeply into the eyeball.

The materials also caused her immune system to develop an extreme reaction – the creation of scar tissue to protect the eye. This mechanism, if not treated during the critical time close to the moment of injury, may cause actual damage to the “transparent” front parts of the eye, the conjunctiva and cornea.

In addition, the surface area of the eye, which naturally produces moisture, may develop extreme dryness and considerable pain.

Thinking of ways to treat this complicated injury, Rambam doctors came up with an unusual solution – coating the affected area of the eye with an amniotic membrane, the external layer of the placenta. This unconventional surgical procedure is performed in only a few centers in Israel.

A unique process was used to preserve the amniotic membrane harvested from a donor following a Caesarean section. After ensuring the suitability of the membrane, the young woman underwent a complex, precise, and delicate procedure, during which the membrane was sewn under the woman’s eyelids.

The successful operation was followed by a short recovery period, during which the implant was successfully absorbed by her body and the young woman’s vision was restored.

“Reconstructive surgery using placental transplantation is a very special procedure for treating severe burns on the surface of the eye,” explained Dr. Graffi, who led the surgery.

“During pregnancy, the membrane prevents the fetus from being rejected from the womb and vice versa, and allows them to coexist. In addition, the membrane contains important nutrients and helps the fetus to grow and develop. We actually ‘exploit’ these properties during the implantation process, with the intention that the body will absorb the nutrients from the membrane that has been attached to the surface of the eye, allowing for recovery.”

The successful absorption of the implant, rehabilitation, and the creation of a healthier structure are expected. These stages will enable corneal transplantation or cataract surgery if needed.

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Iranian fanatic Mehdi Taeb promotes a twisted ideology, preaching that the State of Israel, Zionists, and Jews lurk behind all evil in the world.

Mehdi Taeb, who leads the Ammar Strategic Advisory Base in Iran, issued a video in which he spouts vile lies about Israel, blaming the Jewish people for everything from ISIS’ atrocities to the activities of the international media.

While these virulently anti-Semitic tropes are stock-in-trade for Muslim preachers in the Middle East, it is still shocking to hear Taeb blame the Jews for crimes against humanity committed by Islamic terrorists like ISIS.

Taeb also rolls out a theory regarding the State of Israel’s role in the Jews’ plan for world domination that is truly appalling.

Do You Love Israel? Show Your Support!

Donate to vital charities that protect Israelis and help educate and inspire millions around the world to support Israel too!

Now more than ever, Israel needs your help to fight the battle of public opinion. Israel's enemies are using social media to incite brutal terror against innocent civilians. Please help us fight back!